Meanwhile, his aunt had spread herself comfortably out in his armchair, and was untying her bonnet-strings and beaming at him until he was ready to expire with confusion. "I do think," she observed at last, "that when an old aunt all the way from Australia takes the trouble to come and see you like this, you might spare her just one kiss!" Flushington dared not refuse; he tottered up and kissed her somewhere about the face, after which he did not know which way to look, he was so terribly afraid that he might have to go through the same ceremony with his cousins, which he simply could not have survived. Happily for him, they did not appear to expect it and he balanced a chair on its hind legs and, resting one knee upon it, waited patiently for them to begin a conversation; he could not have uttered a single word. The aunt came to his rescue: "You don't ask after your Uncle Samuel, who used to send you the beetles?" she said, reprovingly. "No," said Flushington, who had forgotten Uncle Samuel and his beetles, too; "no, how is Uncle Samuel--quite well, I hope?" "Only tolerably so, thank you, Fred; you see, he never got over his great loss." "No," said Flushington desperately, "of course not; it was a--a large sum of money to lose at once." "I was not referring to money," said she, with a slight touch of stoniness in her manner; "I was alluding to the death of your Cousin John." Flushington had felt himself getting on rather well just before that, but this awkward mistake--for he could not recollect having heard of Cousin John before--threw him off his balance again; he collapsed into silence once more, inwardly resolving to be lured into no more questions concerning relatives. His ignorance seemed to have aroused pathetic sentiments in his aunt. "I ought to have known," she said, shaking her head, "they'd soon forget us in the old country; here's my own sister's son, and he doesn't remember his cousin's death! Well, well, now we're here, we must see if we can't know one another a little better. Fred, you must take the girls and me everywhere and show us everything, like a good nephew, you know." Flushington had a horrible mental vision of himself careering about all Cambridge, followed by a long procession of female relatives--a fearful possibility to so shy a man. "Shall you be here long?" he asked. "Only a week or so; we're at the 'Bull,' very near you, you see; and I'm afraid you think us very bold beggars, Fred, but we're going to ask you to give us something to eat. I've set my heart, so have the girls (haven't you, dears?), on lunching once with a college student in his own room."